in a dark, dark wood (no spoilers)

I recently began this audiobook in a dark, dark woodby Ruth Ware and could not resume my life until I made it through the last two nail biting hours. I pulled into my driveway one evening, reluctant to shut the story off, and made my way through the close of the day, but first thing the next morning, I grabbed my cell phone and gripped my blankets until it was over, stopping only for a few minutes to pad into the kitchen for a coffee refill or, well, air. I needed air because this is the kind of story that’s hard to listen to by yourself. You want to grab someone’s wrist or scream en masse in a dark theater. Aaaack!! There is someone in the house? THERE’S SOMEONE IN THE HOUSE!! Who IS it? Get out of there! What are you DOing? Ware skillfully, slowly builds tension and sustains the mystery right up until the last two chapters. And for someone who seems quite good at detective-ing, I did not figure this one out! I had my suspicions and enjoyed the detective game, but while some of my hunches proved true, most fundamentally did not. It was WONDERFUL! If you’re an Audible subscriber, I highly recommend this storyteller’s version as Imogen Church offers a chilling narration. She provides distinctive voices for all the characters, which again were skillfully done. I especially liked her Northumberland Nurse and plan to call all my best friends pet and duckie from now on. I’m not sure how the novel would read on the page, whether readers would get impatient with the protagonist’s amnesia or grow weary of the manic machinations of the “hen party” organizer, who like a plucky sorority girl pulls them reluctantly into all sorts of cringe-worthy bachelorette games, but the audio version is cake. Go get some!

In a Dark, Dark Wood, By Ruth Ware (hardcover 320 pp)

Who can I trust if I can’t even trust myself?

from IndieBound.org

What should be a cozy and fun-filled weekend deep in the English countryside takes a sinister turn in Ruth Ware’s suspenseful, compulsive, and darkly twisted psychological thriller.
Leonora, known to some as Lee and others as Nora, is a reclusive crime writer, unwilling to leave her “nest” of an apartment unless it is absolutely necessary. When a friend she hasn’t seen or spoken to in years unexpectedly invites Nora (“Lee””?”) to a weekend away in an eerie glass house deep in the English countryside, she reluctantly agrees to make the trip. Forty-eight hours later, she wakes up in a hospital bed injured but alive, with the knowledge that someone is dead. Wondering not “what happened?” but “what have I done?,” Nora (“Lee””?”) tries to piece together the events of the past weekend. Working to uncover secrets, reveal motives, and find answers, Nora (“Lee””?”) must revisit parts of herself that she would much rather leave buried where they belong: in the past.

It’s Northumberland, which is quite far north, so it’s a cold place to live and it’s quite an isolated place to live. You know, it’s not like America — there’s not, you know, huge swaths of wilderness. But you can definitely be a long way from civilization and a long way from help. And a big part of — which I think is one of my own phobias — a big part of the book is that they’re out of mobile contact. Their cellphones don’t work. So immediately they’re kind of in this isolated situation where they can’t get help even if they want to.

On the glass house where the bachelorette party takes place, and the constant feeling the guests have of being watched

I think it came from having watched a lot of movies as a kid. Things like, you know, the Scream movies where there are teens and people in an isolated location and the camera is the eyes of the killer. And very often you get those shots where the camera is circling the house looking in through the windows. And it’s incredibly creepy to be sort of outside looking in at people who are being watched unawares. And as I was watching, my instinct would always be: “Close the curtains!” This whole movie would never happen if you just had blinds. And I suppose it was born out of that — the idea that you might want to shut the blinds, and not be able to.

On the mystery writers who have influenced her

I read a huge amount of it as a kid. You know, Agatha Christie, Josephine Tey, Dorothy L. Sayers, Sherlock Holmes. And I didn’t consciously channel that when I was writing, but when I finished and reread the book, I did suddenly realize how much this kind of structure owed to … Agatha Christie. And it wasn’t consciously done, but … I would say I definitely owe a debt to Christie.

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Well Ducki, I loved this piece, and it reminded me of the audio book we listened to on our tour through the NE after the NY graduation. While driving through a quaint VT hamlet I was so engrossed in the adventures of two French sisters, one of whom joined the resistance during WWII and the other who just tried to survive. This story was a cliff hanger, and I didn’t even see the 25 mph sign, but the blue lights in our rear view mirror caught my attention . The kindly sheriff nodded knowingly when I explained the engrossing audio book, and just said it happens a lot. He was kind enough to lower my speed on the ticket enough that it lowered the fine a bit and prevented points being reported to the DMV. I would highly recommend the book & can find out the title if you are interested. Reading a pretty good one that a friend gave me on this trip thru the SW. It’s called “The Time Travelers Wife.”